User talk:Duffer1/Archive 1 - Misc. - Discussion with Central

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Hello Matthew McGhee. Interesting, my wife is a McGhee from Los Angeles, California. My name is Daniel O'Brien. We are members of the Moorpark Congregation in Ventura county.

At any rate, I appreciate your edits and your comments in reference to all the JW related pages. Tonight during the Service Meeting it occurred to me that we should add a section to the JW main page dealing with Apostates and the Evil Slave class. I looked in the Reasoning book under "Apostasy." There are some good points there that we could incorporate. My thought is this: by adding this to the Opposition to Jehovah's Witnesses section, but wording it as neutrally as possible, it will serve as a touchstone to expose the agenda of some of the editors that are obviously of that group. The more they try to deny it, the more their words and actions would tend to confirm it. We'll be able to explain more about our beliefs and any detractors will only serve to prove our point!

I'll try to make a draft attempt at this in the morning and perhaps I'll post it. I'll let you know! --DannyMuse 08:32, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi Matthew, I noticed you had tried to deal with some apostates like Eyesopen. I contacted an adminstator about the problems we have been have with him and he agreed to help. This administrator, Neigel von Teighen, [[1]] states he wants to, "preserving NPOV and accuracy in Wikipedia." This is what the apostates lack. Neigel von Teighen said he would add the page into his watchlist and keep an eye on him. If you what to contact him direct (or if other witness want to) I thought I let you know about him.

Much of the information Eyesopen edits is dated 30 years ago. I was new in the truth then but I can remember some of the issues Eyesopen is negatively portraying. I have tried to add my input to the site but Eyesopen has always deleted it. Maybe with the administrator's help we can deal with this problem.--Saujad 21:05, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Matthew I read over the discussion you had with Eyesopen and you handled him great. You were actually able to make some changes to his negitive writings. It makes me sick inside to try to reason with someone like him, I feel like I am talking to someone that is disfellowshiped. But the administrator wants me to try again to make some changes as he watches.--Saujad 01:45, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Matthew, I've contacted a WP advocate to try to bring some resolution to this situation with Central. You can read my request and his reply at: User_talk:Sam_Spade#Requesting_an_advocate. Among other things, he said we would need one other user besides myself who has experienced difficulty with this user, and has unsuccessfully asked them to make the needed improvements. He then recommended User:Cobaltbluetony who I have also contacted. But I wondered if you'd be willing to participate. Please read these comments and let's discuss. Thanks. --DannyMuse 04:42, 21 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer1 has added an excellent clarification of the differences between Arianism and Jehovah's Witnesses. It is to be hoped that these edits will stand, because they accurately describe why people call the JWs "Arian", and (I assume with equal accuracy), why this label is rejected by the JWs. Thanks, and congratulations: this kind of gap-bridging makes the collaborative process possible. Mkmcconn (Talk) 28 June 2005 19:08 (UTC)

• Who will survive Armageddon?

http://www.touchstoneforum.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.pl?az=read_count&om=4&forum=DCForumID4

I thought you might like to see this. It's a letter the Governing Body received in 1980 from the Watch Tower's chairman's committee, before the Governing Body disfellowshipped many senior Witnesses for "apostasy", and the reason was they were discussing these teachings below. I happen to agree with the points that disagree with traditional Watch Tower doctrine. You would also find it interesting reading Raymond Franz's discussion of each of these points in his two books, Crisis of Conscience and In search of Christian Freedom, and after see if you can still refute them using the Bible as your guide. The letter is below: Central 21:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Following are some of the wrong teachings being spread as emanating from Bethel. These have been brought to the attention of the Governing Body from the field from April 14 onward.

1. That Jehovah does not have an organization on earth today and its Governing Body is not being directed by Jehovah.

2. Everyone baptized from Christ's time (C.E. 33) forward to the end should have the heavenly hope. All these should be partaking of the emblems at Memorial time and not just those who claim to be of the anointed remnant.

3. There is no proper arrangement as a "faithful and discreet slave" class made up of the anointed ones and their Governing Body to direct affairs of Jehovah's people. At Matthew 24:45 Jesus used this expression only as an illustration of faithfulness of individuals. Rules are not needed only follow the Bible.

4. There are not two classes today, the heavenly class and those of the earthly class also called "other sheep" at John 10:16

5. That the number 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7:4 and 14:1 is symbolic and not to be taken as literal. Those of the "great crowd" mentioned at Revelation 7:9 also serve in heaven as indicated in vs. 15 where it is claimed that such crowd serves "day and night" in his temple (naos) or K. int says: "in the divine habitation of him."

6. That we are now living in a special period of "last days" but that the "last days" started 1900 years ago C.E. 33 as indicated by Peter at Acts 2:17 when he quoted from the prophet Joel.

7. That 1914 is not an established date. Christ Jesus was not enthroned then but has been ruling in his kingdom since C.E.33. That Christ's presence (parousia) is not yet but when the "sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven" (Matthew 24:30) in the future.

8. That Abraham, David, and other faithful men of old will also have the heavenly life basing such view on Hebrews 11:16.

(Copy of letter, Page 316, Crisis of Conscience, by Raymond Franz.)

A major tenet of your faith is the degree of which you disagree with Jehovah's Witness theology? This is not an answer to my question. I asked you for a couple of the major tenets of your personal theology. If you don't want to answer, that's fine, no need to spam my talk page with how much you disagree with me. Duffer 09:22, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are eight points above that I agree on, you have you answer. You presumably wanted some beliefs that differ from your own, so now you have them above. As for "Spam" you asked me to post here on your Talk page with some scriptural points I believe in, remember? And now you have them. 1. God does not use human organizations, 2. All Christians have the heavenly hope. 3. All Christians are the "faithful slave". 4. There are not first and second-class Christians with different rewards. 5. There is no numerical limit on how many faithful go to heaven. 6. Last days began in 33CE, not 1914. 7. Christ started his rule in 33CE, not 1914. (Matthew 28:18) 8. Pre-Christian faithful will also get the heavenly reward, Hebrews 11:13-16. If you are interested in a discussion, please first read Raymond Franz's detailed scriptural points in his two book, to avoid covering old ground. Central 12:43, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No.. I just wanted some of your major tenets that you believe are the same as what Jesus taught, not what may or may not differ from my own personal views. I do distinctly remember asking you to post here or your page or in e-mail a couple of your beliefs, not post a dubious bullet list concocted by the most vociferous apostate the WTS has ever seen. I'm certainly interested in discussion, but you know very well that I'm not going to read that mans books. Duffer 23:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you read my post again, and this time with your eyes open. You said, "I just wanted some of your major tenets that you believe are the same as what Jesus taught". You have them above, a good selection of eight of them. If you now choose to ignore them, then that says a lot more about your own insecurity of your beliefs. Your next comment gave me a good laugh: "a dubious bullet list concocted by the most vociferous apostate the WTS has ever seen." Well at least we are getting somewhere as you now clearly admit the Governing Body's chairman's committee is made up of "vociferous apostates" because they composed the list! You must also think the Bible is apostate for teachings such things? LOL. You disappoint me with your last comment: "I'm not going to read that mans books". Matthew, do you trust the Bible as God's word? If yes, then why do you insult God's word by showing such a lack of faith in it? See this scripture if you are not sure what I'm referring to: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things now here nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God's love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."—Romans 8:38, 39

If you have any trust in your own faith in Jesus and God, then reading a book will not affect it one bit, and I can guarantee that your faith in God and Jesus will not remotely be dinted by anything in Franz's books, just the opposite. He is most definitely not an apostate, and you would see that if you opened your eyes to get some accurate knowledge. There are some sample pages next to the books section on the main page, why not give them a look, and you will see they are not remotely "apostate". Remember Matthew, God and Jesus' words have nothing to fear from examination, and if you think they do, then you have less faith than you kid yourself. I can't make you do anything, but if you have so little faith, (especially in your religious organization) and you act like you fear it will collapse like a house of cards with the slightest prod, then you need to do a lot of self questioning. You have the list of eight points I believe in. If you don't want to question your own beliefs in the process that is your prerogative. I just hope one day you will put your emotions away, and look more rationally at why you cling to some of your beliefs, and why you run from looking at any critique of them. Maybe it's because you are young and full of enthusiasm, but I'm sure you also know, someone intensely believing they are right does not make it so. We have all seen the nutty evangelicals on the TV having fits on the floor, and claiming miracles with screaming apparent sincerity, but you know as well as most that it all means nothing when the blinding emotions and theatricals are stripped away and put to the test of the scriptures. Anyway Mathew, only you can admit your reasoning for such fear of a few books. I hope one day you will have enough faith in yourself and your God to not be so close minded and lacking in faith. Regards. Central 01:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

They composed a list of wrong teachings and you know very well it was the 'wrong teachings' that I was refering to. Don't presume to know my amount of faith. I am not afraid of such criticisms from apostates. It is not an issue of trusting my faith (or lack of), it is having faith and conviction enough to do as the bible says and avoid apostates that deliberately try to disuade you from your faith. That said, I have addressed nearly all aspects of my faith with individuals all over the internet. The guys at CARM and the yahoo group 'Evangelicals and JWs' will certainly remember me. Obviously I am not afraid of scrutiny of my beliefs. Duffer 03:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew, honesty is the best policy, so why are you now saying "you know very well it was the 'wrong teachings' that I was referring to"? You clearly said "dubious bullet list concocted by the most vociferous apostate the WTS has ever seen", you were clearly referring to the one "concocting" the list, which was not Raymond Franz, he had nothing whatsoever to do with it, or its formation. Trying to back down is just making you lose all credibility. You said: "I am not afraid of such criticisms from apostates". What proof have you got that Raymond Franz is an apostate as you claim? Can you even define an apostate using your Bible as the guide? Calling someone a name does not make it true just because you wish to use that name as an excuse for not dealing with their pertinent points and discussions. Ray Franz is not remotely apostate by the Bible's definition, and I challenge you to refute that. All you are doing Matthew is parroting what you've been incorrectly indoctrinated with from your religious leaders and other ignorant JWs. Why not do your own research? Do you not trust your own decisions based on informed research, rather than someone else's opinions based on their own fears and prejudices?

You said: "the bible says and avoid apostates that deliberately try to dissuade you from your faith", yes, it does, and I totally agree with that. But Raymond Franz is not even remotely apostate; if you actually took time to get educated on what he writes you would know this already! His entire second book is about building your relationship with God and Jesus, not breaking it down. You are only using such nasty labels like "apostate" as a false reason to avoid dealing with issues you find uncomfortable. You claim you are not "afraid of scrutiny" but you refuse to do just that, hiding behind the skirt of labels like "apostate", as they are a convenient way to not deal with information you would rather not face. I am not going to argue with you more on this point, you know when you are alone why you are avoiding facing up to some issues, and it may be you prefer to argue with "Evangelicals" because they might bring up very weak points that are child's play to knock down and give your ego a buzz. If you have any faith in God, and His words at (Romans 8:38, 39) you would have no fear at all of some old Christian man who wrote two books. If you think one old Christian man like Raymond Franz can kill your God and faith, then you have no faith to begin with Matthew. It's all up to you, if you only choose the weak arguments to take on, then you need to ask yourself why you do this, and how strong is your relationship with God to start with? Regards, Central 11:16, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've discussed theological doctrine with Rob Bowman on his yahoo group and at Touchestone. I've gotten into a heated debate with Dr. Jerry Bergman (an apostate JW mental health propagandist(bad judgement on my part that won't happen again)), they have the same resources and books available to them. Nearly anyone who lurks discussion forums about Jehovah's Witnesses has read Franz's books, and they talk about them frequently. My previous participation at such discussion forums (with the exception of Touchestone) is regrettable, it's non-stop bickering; so I stopped. I have discussed, literally, every aspect of my faith with dozens of people on the net. Do not presume to know my motives, I have already told you specifically that I will not read Franz's books because he is apostate from my faith (2 Tim. 2: 18; Jude 8; Acts 20: 29,30; 1 John 2: 18, 19; Hebrews 6: 4-9). Regarding such people the bible couldn't be more clear (Romans 16: 17,18; Matthey 7: 15; John 9-11). Only in a hateful mind can conviction to do as one believes in be called "backing down". Duffer 22:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You have still failed to give a Biblical description of an 'apostate'. A word you seem to love to throw about, and yet seem to have little compression of how it relates to the Bible (that's supposed to be God's word by the way). If you claim you are not shy of debate, then why fear reading those two books of Franz's, just for the debate in them, and ignore the writer, as he is irrelevant. It's the points (all from the Bible) that he puts forward that you should be focussing on, not him. You appear to be clearly using Ad hominem as a weak excuse for not facing up to more robust discussions, with some meat in. Why not ignore all the people on those boards, and just look at the points Franz brings up. If you research them and then still feel the same, then you will have lots of ammunition to shoot down all these "apostates" as you call them. If you have some point of scriptures incorrect, you will have private opportunity to humbly correct your own viewpoint. I do not know why you are listing those scriptures, as none of them apply to Ray Franz. Mind you, Matthew 7:15 gave me a laugh, shouldn't you be applying that to the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses?

You should be careful about labelling people apostates, especially when you know so very little about them. If you were concerned with truth, you would get to know who Raymond Franz is, and you would see he is a very mild and gentle spoken Christian, and has a very strong faith in God. You said: "because he is apostate from my faith", can you tell me what your faith is in? Christianity as depicted in the New Testament, or the Watch Tower publishing organization as depicted in their own literature? You seem a little confused, as the scriptures are only speaking about abandoning the teachings of Jesus, not those of a modern day book publishing minor religion, which changes its doctrines like most people change their underwear. Here are some quotes about examining your own religion; these are all from the Watch Tower Society. If you had an accurate knowledge of Raymond Franz, you would be in a better position to be informed, rather than parrot false information about him that you've been fed from other Witnesses or the organization. Why not read his introduction to his first book? Don't worry, there is nothing bashing the Watch Tower, just his aim for writing the book, Crisis of Conscience, just seeing what kind of writer he is might give you some more insight, rather then imaging the worst based on false rumours and misinformation. You can find it here. PS. Did you read Romans 8:38–39? Central 16:18, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Raymond Franz is apostate from my faith. You did not ask for a biblical description of an apostate, you stated that I had incorrectly labelled Franz. I replied with several scriptures that clearly indicate characteristics of an apostate. He has deviated from the truth (2 Tim 2: 18); from among us such men will come forth and teach contrary doctrine (Acts 20: 29-30); if he was of us he would have remaind with us (1 John 2:19); therefore we are obligated to avoid, disfellowship, and shun such a person (Romans 16: 17; 2 Thess. 3: 6, 14; Titus 3:10; 2 John 10). The scriptures posited are self evident, biblically, he is apostate from my faith. Just as a Catholic who goes about one day teaching things contrary to Catholic doctrine, that man has become apostate from the Catholic point of view, since they believe they have the truth, they would be hypocrites to not label such a man: "apostate".

Who are "all these apostates" that you refer to? I have only mentioned two: "Raymond Franz," and "Dr. Jerry Bergman." Both who technically are apostate from my faith (belief system). My belief is in the Christian doctrine of the entirety of the bible as explicated by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. My faith is my own, though you really didn't ask the question to recieve an answer, you were just interested in providing yourself oppurtinity to trash the WTB&TS and me. I examine my belief system, faith, and personal relationship with Jesus and his Father, in the light of the bible. The bible can be the only ultimate basis for such examination so don't give me that "examine your religion" horse-pucky, if I am to not even say a greeting to such a man (per the Bible), why on earth would I read his words? I'm not worried about WT bashing, I'm worried about becoming a sharer in his sin. My viewpoint on this matter is biblically sound whether you agree with it or not, so stop insinuative nonsense like "i'm afraid" or "spiritually weak" or accusing me of ad hom. You said I only debate weak arguments for an "ego buzz", I say I've discussed my faith with two of the most publicized protagonists against the WTB&TS (one has a Masters in Biblical Studies and Theology, the other has two doctorates, though neither in the field of religious study).

I'd be more than happy to oblige a discussion with you, however, your caricatures of my position need to stop, and you must respect my point of view regarding apostacy. Duffer 08:53, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You said: "Raymond Franz is apostate from my faith." Well at least we are getting somewhere now, as that indicates your faith is in the Watch Tower Bible & Tract Society, and not exclusive loyalty to God, Jesus and the Bible. You said: "I replied with several scriptures that clearly indicate characteristics of an apostate." Um nope, you will find the scriptures are talking about Christianity as Jesus' defines, not the Watch Tower Society's doctrines from some fallible men in New York. You will find if you could be bothered to get some accurate information, that Ray Franz is not described in any of those scriptures. You appear to be getting confused between the Bible (from God) and the publications and flip-flopping unique doctrines and teachings of a New York publishing organization.

You said: "if he was of us he would have remained with us (1 John 2:19)" Franz did remain as a Christian, what you are confused with is the unique doctrines of the modern publishing organization, the Watch Tower Society, which as you know didn't exist until well after 1900 years after John's words. Resisting the doctrines of men that have been found out to have no scriptural foundation is not apostate as far as Jesus' defined the action. You would do well to learn this fact. You would find it extremely hard to find anything that Franz believes that is not found in the scriptures, and seeing as you think you are such an expert, I would like you to give, say, one or two examples from the Bible where Franz's beliefs contradict them. I'm sure you also know that slandering people is a serious scriptural offence, especially slandering other Christians. How would you react to being labelled a child molester or drug dealer by someone who knows nothing about you, but just repeated false rumours they heard from someone else who was equally ignorant? If you don't know someone's beliefs, and the reason for them, then how can you possibly go around judging them as worthless apostates? Remember Matthew; the judgments you give out (especially in ignorance) will be put back on you the same way.

You said: "Just as a Catholic who goes about one day teaching things contrary to Catholic doctrine, that man has become apostate from the Catholic point of view." Actually, you are incorrect. Read the first introduction to Franz's book, and he gives an exact example of that scenario involving Roman Catholic priest Hans Küng. Besides even if he were teachings contrary to Catholic doctrines, that would not make him an apostate in Biblical terms, as you know there are plenty of doctrines of the Catholic church that are not Biblical, and that's the point! Avoiding "apostates" should only be those contradicting Jesus' teachings, not those disagreeing with men's fallible interpretations, unless of course you think the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses are gods?

You said: "My belief is. . . as explicated by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. My faith is my own." You have contradicted yourself. How can it be "explicated by the Watch Tower", and your own? If it were your own, none of it would come from fallible men in New York. You said: "I examine my belief system. . . in the light of the bible." Then why bother with men's constantly vacillating opinions from New York? Did not Christ say he would send a helper to teach and guide you—that being the Holy Spirit? (Luke 12:12; John 14:26)

You said: "The bible can be the only ultimate basis for such examination." I agree, but where does the Bible say Ray Franz's beliefs are non-scriptural and antichrist? You have admitted you don't know his books, so therefore you don't know his beliefs, so how can you say the highly judgemental things you do? How will you feel if you are wrong, and are slandering another genuine Christian? Don't you think it better to check your facts before you sin against God in this way? How can we "make sure of all things" if we refuse to get our facts first? You said: "I'm not worried about WT bashing, I'm worried about becoming a sharer in his sin." Can you tell me the Biblical (not Watch Tower) sin he is supposed to be committing? (Facts please) You said: "you must respect my point of view regarding apostasy." It would have respect if it were based on accurate knowledge, and the Bible, but at present it clearly appears to come from false accusations and the malevolent opinions of some fallible old men in New York. I'm sure you will agree God's standards should be the only measuring sick, not the fickle and unsound standards of imperfect men. Central 00:23, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Loyalty. You are again misrepresenting what I directly said: "My belief is in the Christian doctrine of the entirety of the bible as explicated by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society." that is in no way talking about loyalty. Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Apostacy. Other then saying I'm wrong you provided no evidence to the contrary. Lets be clear on this point; I believe what the WTB&TS teaches is the correct interpretations of Jesus's, and the apostle's, words. As a result, anyone who knows these things yet turns away and persists in teaching what is contrary, IS apostate. That's biblical. For us to believe that Franz is not an apostate, we would have to believe that the WTB&TS's interpretations are not correct. I bring up Catholocism as an example, I don't know if they excommunicate or not, you're missing my point, or refusing to address it. It is not a judgement of him (nor is it slander), it is a label of his actions. I get called "apostate" more than you'd think just for merely being un-orthodox. It doesn't phase me at all, and it likely doesn't phase Franz at all to know we refer to him as an apostate. He's doing what he believes is right, one day we will all know if he was or not; until then, I do as the bible tells me. Your entire argument hinges on the supposition that what the WTB&TS teaches is not what Jesus taught, if it is what Jesus taught, then he is apostate, I believe it is the correct interpretation of what Jesus taught, therefore, he is apostate and must be shunned. Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Christianity and Apostacy. "Franz did remain as a Christian". From your perspective, maybe he did; from my perspective he apostatized. You have no biblical argument, only your perspective. Contrary to that, I have provided you sound biblical principle that supports my point of view; scripture that you may even agree with as your above reply vaguely indicates you do believe in apostacy from truth as taught by Jesus. Would you not shun a person of your faith whom you believe has apostatized (like the bible specifically tells you to do)? Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Conviction Enough to Shun. It is not my place to tear down his faith, it is my duty to defend my own. Besides, for me to have a discussion about Mr. Franz's specific viewpoints I would have to aquire one of his books, and read it. That will not happen. Why can you not accept that, and why do you criticize me for doing what the bible tells me to do? Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Apostacy Continued. Your interpretation of Apostacy is not accurate according to the bible. Remember please that Jesus had absolutely no say on the matter of uncircumcision (Acts 15)(which in itself was accused of being an apostacy (Acts 21:21)). The doctrinal decision layed down not only by the apostles (literally the interpretation of "imperfect men"), but also "the older men of the congregations" was binding enough to constitute a disciplinary action for those who would not accept the change (Acts 15:1; Titus 1:9,10, 13; Proverbs 6:23) which very likely included excommunication and subsequent shunning of persistent individuals (1 Tim. 3: 6, 11). Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• My Faith is My Own. How is that a contradiction to: My belief is. . . as explicated by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society?" Is your faith not your own regardless of who taught you? This is the kind of thing I believe CBT was refering to when he asked you: "Are you trying to wear Witnesses down?" Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Raymond Franz Revisited. He disagrees so much with the interpretations of the Bible as set forth by the WTB&TS that he not only left, he wrote (two?) books detailing his disagreements. That alone is enough for me to know I should not pay attention to anything he says, lest I myself become a sharer in his sin (1 Tim. 3:6, 11; 2 John 11). Just from the above we can gather several indicators of apostacy: If he was of us, he would have remained with us; He is teaching contrary doctrine; He is profiting off of a stumbling block to the faith of those he once called: "brothers." Duffer 09:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

• I will use your headings as replies:

• Loyalty. Go and look up the word "explicate". You faith is in the explanations and interpretations of men, not your own deductions based solely on the Bible and God's Holy Spirit. Therefore, you are loyal to men, not God and not even yourself.

• Apostasy. You said: "I believe what the WTB&TS teaches. . . As a result, anyone who knows these things yet turns away and persists in teaching what is contrary, IS apostate." Except you have failed to even look at the evidence that 1. Is the Watch Tower truthful and accurate in its teachings, and 2. What exactly does Franz believe in? You are mixing two usages. The Watch Tower sees any disagreement with them as "apostate", but that is not the same as the Bible's usage. Please learn the differences! You said: "it is a label of his actions." Which actions? Leaving a book publishing company, or rather being expelled due to eating a meal with your employer is not remotely hinted at in scripture. So, can you please tell me what his specific sins are, and please lose the red herring of "leaving the New York book publishers"?

• You go on: "until then, I do as the bible tells me. . . if it is what Jesus taught, then he is apostate, I believe it is the correct interpretation of what Jesus taught." And what is that? You have failed to give any specifics at all, except to make unfounded accusations. The Bible tell you to "keep making sure", to "test all things", "to come to spiritual maturity" not dependent on others to teach you and feed you like a baby. How can you know if something is 'good or bad' if you know nothing about it? None of your claims are scriptural or based in objective facts.

• Christianity and Apostasy. You said: "from my perspective he apostatized. You have no biblical argument, only your perspective." What "Perspective"? You have admitted you know nothing about what Franz thinks, so how can you have the faintest idea what he believes? Leaving a book publishing company is not biblical reason for the label of antichrist (apostate). How can you make an informed decision on him if you have admitted you are totally ignorant of him and his beliefs? You need to get some accurate knowledge, and sort out your own perspective. Ignorance on your part is not an excuse.

• You said: "I have provided you sound biblical principle that supports my point of view". No Matthew, you have misapplied scripture, as Franz's situation is not mentioned in scripture. If you are ignorant of someone's beliefs, how can you put them in any category, and where doe the Bible teach you to make false accusations based on zero objective information? Again, leaving a book publishing company is not a biblical ground for being labelled antichrist, and that's the scriptural meaning of apostate.

• You go on: "Would you not shun a person of your faith whom you believe has apostatized (like the bible specifically tells you to do)." What do you mean by "your faith"? I am not like you; I have no faith in fallible men. I would never put my life and soul on the line for men and their power games and self-delusions. If you were referring to faith in Jesus & God, then I would get accurate and informed knowledge before I chose to avoid someone. How could I know anything about what person X believed if I have never read or spoken to them and heard their own words and side of the story? The scriptures make it blatantly clear that getting information will not, and cannot ever ruin your faith or relationship with God/Jesus. (Romans 8:38-39). How can you know someone's specific beliefs and reason for them and then call them "apostate" if you refuse to get any facts in the first place? Your position is totally unscriptural and untenable.

• Conviction Enough to Shun. You said: "it is my duty to defend my own". All you have defended is the man made Watch Tower and your loyalty to it, not the Bible or Jesus' instructions. Again, without accurate knowledge you are incapable of making a fair and rational biblical distinction between a Christian and an antichrist rebel (apostate).

• Apostasy Continued. You said: "Jesus had absolutely no say on the matter of uncircumcision" Incorrect again, Jesus was guiding them according to scripture along with the Holy Spirit. And Paul in that scripture in Acts 21:21 was clearly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as were others (Acts 15:28), and Paul also experienced a miraculous conversion from Jesus directly. You also ignore the fact that no one was excommunicated for having a disagreement; it was debated, unlike you who would probably just excommunicate, label antichrist, shun, and slander anyone without even trying to find the facts out. As Titus 1:9 says, "so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." This is what you oppose. You have shown your unscriptural position is: "You must not even get your facts, just excommunicate them all, even if you are clueless as to any alleged transgressions, just expel and shun regardless. Don't talk to them, don't find the facts out, don't refute, just label, excommunicate and shun, don't worry about those silly things called facts." Your position Matthew is not remotely scriptural, reasonable or Christian, looking at your posts. None of those people in scripture ran and hid like cowards when an issue arose, they instead took it head on, got the facts, spoke to all involved and discussed it fully, something you refuse to do, or are terrified to do.

• My Faith is My Own. How can it be your own, when it is entirely dependent on the current interpretations of some old men in New York who keep changing their minds even though they claim it's all from God and directly guided by the Holy Spirit? Where is Jesus in all that? Oh sorry, I forgot, Jesus is not your mediator, the Governing Body have that privilege instead, regardless of what the Bible actually teaches.

• Raymond Franz Revisited. You said: "as set forth by the WTB&TS" Can you hear yourself? You said up the page: "I'm not worried about WT bashing", and now you are contradicting yourself, as you are demonstrating that your faith is in men's interpretations, not your own, or the Bible's.

• You go on: "that he not only left." He did not "leave"; he was kicked out for eating a meal with his boss.

• You say: "he wrote (two?) books detailing his disagreements. That alone is enough for me to know I should not pay attention to anything he says, lest I myself become a sharer in his sin." So, let me get this correct. Say a Catholic leaves his church because he feels its teachings are non-scriptural (remember he's not leaving because he's lost his faith in God, but is leaving on a pure conscience basis). According to you, that means he is a scriptural "antichrist apostate of Jesus and God". And what has writing books got to do with anything? You haven't even read them, so why would that mean anything? If Franz is antichrist, as you demand he must be for writing two books (which you haven't read) then what in those books specifically opposes Jesus or the Bible? If you cannot answer, then you are proving your own bigotry and unscriptural arrogance at labelling someone who you know nothing of, except "they wrote two books"!

• Everything you have said has demonstrated to me you know little of the Bible, and even less about scriptural precedence in regard to false teachings, yes teachings you are ignorant or oppose as you refuse to get facts before you speak your slanderous labels, and call people antichrist rebels, as that is what an apostate is in scripture. You have spent a long time justifying your own unscriptural prejudices, which is very sad. Your faith must be weaker than a newborn kitten if you are so intimidated you refuse to get any scriptural facts to back up your endless apostate labelling. I get the definite impression your constant compulsion to label someone like Franz with any pejorative false name, is only their to cocoon yourself from having to face up to the fact that you cannot answer any of his scriptural arguments in his books. I don't expect you to admit to that here, but when you go to bed at night, you know what I'm saying is true, no matter how uncomfortable you feel, and no matter how many feeble excuses you choose to cling to hide from the reality that is waiting for you. Please read these articles about making sure of your faith. PS. The word is apostasy, not apostacy.Central 00:37, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do reply if you feel so inclined, however, beyond one more reply I think we should take this to e-mail. Duffer 23:57, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please vote for or against the adoption of the proposed structure for WikiProject Jehovah's Witnesses on the talk page and sign your name with ~~~~. Thanks! --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 01:17, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because of the volatile and tenacious nature of certain editors whose stated or subliminal goal is to detract from Jehovah's Witnesses at any and every opportunity, I am making it my goal to recommend to new and existing editors interested in JW articles to review the Wikipedia's policies:

• WP:NOR - no original research
• WP:V - verifiability
• WP:NPOV - Wikipedia: neutral point of view (this one is critical to JW pages edits especially)
• WP:CIV - Civility

We do have to keep in mind that Wikipedia is not the proper forum for any form of proselytizing. This is an academic endeavor, and to make it worthwhile for Jehovah's Witnesses to contribute positively, abiding by the rules of the forum and sticking to the facts will help us not only keep these articles and the discussions behind them free from ineffective and off-topic banter, but present a respectable product that addresses all sides, but keeps them in perspective.

It is best to ignore insults and off-topic discussions, addressing only the pertinent points so as to reach a consensus regarding the content of these pages. If you must address them, it's best to simply cite the Wikipedia standards and redirect your focus to content and format. I hope my suggestions help. Happy editing! - CobaltBlueTony 21:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hello CBT. I got my internet back up and running. You have posted some good suggestions, things I know I need to work on. Thank you :) Duffer 21:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Matt, it's very easy to get sucked into debating what we believe, but remember that it's not the point of the article to justify or prove anything. This is an academic exercise to attempt to impartially delineate our faith, and issues that are raised by it, to a reasonable extent. If you engage other editors in scriptural debates, it's like arguing with a household in the door-to-door ministry or heck, even trying to shout down an apostate outside a convention. We just don't do that sort of thing. And you know exactly why, so I don't even need to expand that point at all.

What we need to do, to be faithful, productive, and consistent, is to make sure what we believe is properly represented and that counterpoints are indentified as exactly that: opposing views. If someone says the Society/GB is duplicitous in fighting legal battles for the rights of the organization but denies them to us as members, we have to refute that. But if they want to say that 1914 is not supported by scholars, that point is a counterpoint, not pertinent in representing our beliefs. It needs to be separated out in whatever manner those things should be represented on Wikipedia.

Central and Tommstein WANT to debate what you believe and disrupt your faith. You wouldn't do this in person, or on some other format online; don't give them the satisafaction here. By limiting the extent to which we interact with them, we maintain our safeguards, and let them continue to sit outside and 'weep and gnash their teeth.' - Φιλία, CobaltBlueTony 15:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to have amazing mind-reading abilities for a member of a fringe religion that preaches isolation from the rest of the world to the extent possible short of going Amish. You should contract those amazing powers out for pay.Tommstein 09:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Check your email, please? - CobaltBlueTony 20:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I saw that you dispute the validity of the new guideline, so I moved it to a proposed section, and created a talk page for it here. Please continue the discussion there. Thanks! --K. AKA Konrad West TALK 00:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Will do Duffer 08:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Duffer, I wondered if I could encourage you to support the rewrite I proposed so that a new subject could be addressed. What I submitted covers the points you are requesting to be covered in a matter of fact fashion. Which is exactly what we are aiming for, no? The other reason is that the opposing camp seems to be ok with it. This way we can bring the current 'argument' to an end. George 20:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I already have (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AMediation_Cabal%2FCases%2F27_12_2005_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses&diff=33214731&oldid=33202495) I like it, but would like to see the implicit made more explicit by adding something like: "however, they do not discount the possibility". What do you think? Duffer 07:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

---

Duffer, On the Mediation Cabal page, you posted the following, Central's post "will look bad, you must keep in mind that the large majority of quotes is "good or bad" or "us-or-them" type language, such quotes are not refering to "not-us, but still good". Please clarify this, I am not sure that I understand it. Thanks, SteveMc 00:25, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, your request has been accepted. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 17:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome, that was fast, I havn't even had a chance to post about it on the NWT page hehe. Duffer 17:47, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi please comment on my question on that Talk page: "I suppose that you don't intend to suppress or obscure information but simply disagree with vague, suggestive statements." This was now commented on in the negative by Tommstein, and this apparent misunderstanding may be the cause of your dispute. Harald88 15:19, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Responded, sorry I missed it, or I would have responded sooner. Duffer 21:40, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Duffer, on the mediation over Armageddon, you placed this statement:

   "Being a faithful Jehovah's Witness ensures the best possible hope for survival, however, we teach that it still does not ensure it. "The only flesh saved" would more accurately read: "only one organization is said to pass through Armageddon."

   So, being a Witness does not ensure survival through Armageddon, so how does survival occur? randomly? being chosen by God (if so, what is the basis of God's choosing)?

2. How many Witness hold the position that tommstein is stating? In other words, how many believe that being a Witness is the only way to survive Armageddon? How strongly does the WTS teach this belief?

Thanks, SteveMc 15:42, 9 January 2006 (UTC), added second question SteveMc 15:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It ensures the best hope, but it does not guarantee. Duffer 17:46, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Being a Witness provides the best possible hope, rejecting our theology provides no hope, but how can you reject what you have not known? Tomm's unique ideas about Jehovah's Witness theology are his alone and they are most assuredly NOT shared by any active Jehovah's Witness. The Touchestone article I provided a link to was written by several active Jehovah's Witnesses who have previously encountered this misconception about our doctrine (none of those Witnesses have anything to do with Wikipedia). You must understand that Tommstein is not interested in accuracy, evan a cursory examination of his edits as well as the comments that administrators have left on his talk page clearly show this. Duffer 18:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A cursory examination of the Jehovah's Witnesses Talk page, including the archived page where this was previously discussed, or even the history of the mediation page itself, reveals that Duffer1 is again lying, this time about me being the only person saying this (for a longer list of Duffer1's history of lying, see the list created by Central the other day found here: User_talk:Cobaltbluetony/Discussion_with_Central). This is perhaps in line with his religion's policies about lying ("theocratic warfare" as they call it), found here: http://www.reexamine.org/quotes/lie.htm. One would do well to not believe a word that comes out of his mouth without massive, published corroboration. This is a statement of common sense in light of the foregoing.Tommstein 04:38, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I forgot: please do read WP:NPA, WP:CIV, and WP:AGF at your nearest convenience.Tommstein 05:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, thanks for kudos. SteveMc 20:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, do Witnesses have any idea why not being a faithful (I mean honestly faithful!) Witness does not ensure survival at Armageddon? I ask this because I am trying to determine what "best hope" really means. SteveMc 18:07, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Even honestly faithful. Zephania 2: 1-3:

• 2 Gather yourselves together, yes, do the gathering, O nation not paling in shame. 2 Before [the] statute gives birth to [anything], [before the] day has passed by just like chaff, before there comes upon YOU people the burning anger of Jehovah, before there comes upon YOU the day of Jehovah’s anger, 3 seek Jehovah, all YOU meek ones of the earth, who have practiced His own judicial decision. Seek righteousness, seek meekness. Probably YOU may be concealed in the day of Jehovah’s anger.

Truly and honestly faithful; to a Witness, survival is almost a certainty, however, we highlight the need to not become 'overly exalted' in our minds over such issues. Be a good, faithful Witness, and you will have the best hope. But to be clear, the WTB&TS does not teach that you will, for a certainty, survive. That is why I made the suggestion: "Witnesses believe that in order to have the best hope of surviving the coming Armageddon you must adhere to the.." Duffer 18:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, SteveMc 18:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

---

In your most recent post on the Mediation page (19:42, 9 January 2006), you took exception to the statement, "near certain belief that they will survive..." That exception seems to contradict the edits we exchanged above, especially, "survival is almost a certainty." Am I to assume then, that some Witnesses (again faithful) will survive, it is just unknown who they will be. Thanks, SteveMc 20:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, thanks for kudos. SteveMc 20:59, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I was refering to "near certain" in regards to those that are not Jehovah's Witnesses. Your sentence read: "Witnesses have a near certain belief that they will survive and that those who do not associate with them will perish." I meant that: destruction of those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses is not a "near certainty", indeed the references that I have provided clearly say: "we don't know" etc.. in regards to non-Witnesses. That's why I proposed: "Witnesses believe that survival of Armageddon is highly unlikely outside of their association" as an alternative. Duffer 22:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Duff i'm also a witness but my question is well why do these people make dumb make up things about armageddon? like the anti-chirst honestly sounds like satan not someone else. and how they predict when its gonna happen? god is just saying enjoy your life for now while i prepare the war and our paradise. These people never listen to us they think we're fu- i mean freaking (almost lost myself excuse me) crazy. why are they like this? and yes i do have page on myself its just that i'm sorta new in wikipedia ( Benjida 22:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)User:Benjida 9:10 PM, 21 January 2006)[reply]

I do not know. Perhaps it is what they are mislead to believe about us, or perhaps their intents are more malicious. By the way, you can sign your name to your posts by typing four ~~~~ tildas in a row. When you click the "Save page" button it will automatically turn those four tildas into a signature with your name and a date & time stamp. Welcome to Wikipedia :).

Please register your vote on the topic at Mediator is damaged? Thanks, SteveMc 19:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, redux again, can I get your input at the bottom of the talk page? - FrancisTyers 10:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nic, if you are unable to do something then please refer me to someone who can, this guy's harassment is increasingly hostile and disruptive. This situation demands immediate review, he is out of control, and I'm tired of being the butt end of his abuse. Please do something, or get people involved who can. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jehovah%27s_Witnesses&diff=prev&oldid=35353761 this is entirely unacceptable behavior, and it has only gotten worse since you initially blocked him for a day. Duffer 06:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer - I am sorry, but there is very little I am now able to do to get Tommstein to behave nicely, simply because placing a block on him whilst there is an active RfC initiated against me by him is very poor form, and secondly because I'm sure to never hear the end of it if I take any further steps towards keeping him under control. I lack the time to be taken through more spurious dispute resolution processes by him, and frankly I would rather avoid his vitriol and unpleasantness wholesale rather than becoming its target. If he wanted to make sure I left him alone by producing that RfC, then he achieved what he set out to do. I suggest that if you feel his behaviour continues to be unacceptable that you bring an arbitration case at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration; I cannot, simply because I do not wish to be bullied by him again. My sincerest apologies. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 09:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your honesty Nic. Duffer 16:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm bullying the administrator that bullied me by blocking me? When are you going to get around to reviewing the novel of WP:NPA, WP:CIV, WP:AGF, and other violations by Duffer1 (and company)? It has been over two weeks now, and it's not a very time-consuming thing to do (I don't think you engaged in 60 hours of research before threatening me, and you didn't even have a nice laid-out list like I have provided you with).Tommstein 05:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please be civil towards other editors, myself included. I admit I did get rather heated towards you and Central on several occassions, although I firmly believe it was a response to provocation, I recognized it was wrong, and I have stopped. Please do likewise; if you won't then I must request arbitration. Duffer 07:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe that I was uncivil. However, I believe your threats are, so, for the 50th time, please do read WP:CIV, because otherwise your continued violations of WP:NPA, WP:CIV, WP:AGF, and probably other policies, and your continued, well-documented, and very extensive history provoking of Central and me, will have to be reported to the Arbitration Committee, who will not kindly ignore it and look the other way as our friendly neighborhood administrator here has done.Tommstein 01:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted a few words, though I don't know how useful they will be to making your case since I stopped editing JW-related articles soon after my encounter with Tomm (not that Tomm was nearly the first to behave like he does). Since I've only passively watched him and other editors involved and would totally agree with your assessments. I basically affirmed what you and Tony have claimed and added some anecdotal evidence. -- uberpenguin 02:28, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In relation to your query on my talk page, all I can say is that I am the slightest bit mystified as to your response towards my rudimentary commentary. I appreciate reviewing deliberations on legalities as they pertain towards organized bodies, and one happened to catch my eye that motivated my participation in the discussion process. I have read of good faith as a guiding tenet here, and am curious why I was not afforded this upon my initial contribution. It perhaps provides some insight as to the motivation, if by no means the rude manners, of your adversary in this arbitration. Rockumsockum 09:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I most certainly welcome your commentary, which I noted on your talk page. I did not intend to give offense, but I was curious because your first additions to Wikipedia were contributed to a rather heated Request for Arbitration (RFa). You are right that I did not entirely assume good faith here, though, Sock Puppetry had occured before I could not help but wonder. Please forgive my presumptiveness, and welcome to Wikipedia. Again, your comments are still more than welcome on my RFa. Duffer 18:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No harm no foul, all is good. Rockumsockum 19:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hello,

An Arbitration case involving you has been opened: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tommstein. Please add evidence to the evidence sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tommstein/Evidence. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tommstein/Workshop.

On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, Mackensen (talk) 03:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just wondering. --Greyfox 21:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry friend but I do not feel comfortable giving you that information. Duffer 21:11, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

thats ok I can learn them all and send a letter to all of them. city that size probaly has ten may be tweenty --Greyfox 02:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

oh and this is why they tell you never say your name and where you live.

because people can complain against you to your home Kingdom Hall and your PO.

Trust me remove it.--Greyfox 02:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC) 02:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Eleven Halls this is so easy like shooting fish in a bucket. Heck, I think will just send it care of the city overseer.

That is good advice friend, perhaps I shouldn't make my information so readily available... However, I cannot tell if what you're saying is a threat, or advice? Duffer 05:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't made up my mind, yet! Let just say, I have a alternate arbitration process stop messin with tomm ok. Oh by the way I under stand your problem with him that is why I have ask for a limited ban I just don't want a infinite one it looks bad.--Greyfox 14:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I havn't been messing with Tomm, he got himself blocked before Arbitration even started, if you feel you need to contact my elders or CO be my guest. I have nothing to hide from them. Duffer 01:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a friendly tip: I've noticed that you use the word "infer" when "imply" is meant.

Just a quick question... What (if any) are the rules with regards quoting from a book like "Organized to Do Jehovah's Will"? My understanding was that this book is printed only for Jehovah's Witnesses and therefore not supposed to be copied onto a public forum such as this one. One of the articles for Jehovah's Witnesses contains quotes from this book. Is this appropriate or can it lead to trouble... Lucille S 02:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good question, I don't know if fair use allows for the quotation of private (not-for-public) publications such as the "Organized" and/or "Pay Attention" books. Duffer 04:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think most everything in the OD book can also be found elsewhere. The information is simply condensed in the OD book for more efficiency for use by publishers. Quick checks through recent publications will probably reveal that. Remember, the old OM book was released a long time ago, so there was need for a new book since much of it became outdated as imporovements to the organization were made over time.--Ando por Fe 18:41, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although you have made a number of accusations regarding Central in the arbitration case you have provided almost no actual evidence such as diffs showing personal attacks or any other violation of Wikipedia policy. A diff is a link such as this [2]. Fred Bauder 18:24, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- *Blush* - Duffer 16:57, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The arbitration committee has reached a final decision in the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Tommstein case. Raul654 13:32, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey duffer, I wrote a reply to you on JW talk. Please understand... I don't 'hate' you or 'hate' your religion. I simply want what's best for the article. I look forward to your reply. Best wishes. :) joshbuddy^talk 02:19, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I understand :) Duffer 02:27, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I invite you to make your objections about User:DufferI on the relevant linked pages ASAP. - CobaltBlueTony 18:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've deleted all except the last version of the page and blocked the impersonator. Please let me know of further ones - David Gerard 19:38, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you David. Duffer 19:40, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fine let's take it to mediation. This article should not be vetted by the WT. I gave even your official sources. The only reason you don't want it there is because it is controversial. Well hey, that's what the article is for...controversial issues. Your actions reinforce my convictions about JW's and how sneaky they can be. It is impossible to argue the JW's are not anti-Catholic anymore then you can argue the KKK is not racist. We both know that. So please spare the us the falsehoods and put the section back or take it to mediation.Cestusdei 23:52, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see my response. I'm sorry you feel that way about the consensus of Witness and non-Witness editors. I know we can resolve this issue, and I will gladly participate in any mediation you choose to initiate. I hope you stick around Wikipedia, I really do. Duffer 10:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mr McGhee, are you aware of the links with Scientology and Satanism, and that fact that two of the admin you keep appealing to on Wikipedia are Scientologists? It’s very revealing that your religion states it has nothing to do with such demonic things, and here you are a Jehovahs appealing to Satanists for their help in public. Maybe this is something you need to address before your church pastors find out. Though I think you will have a harder time trying to hide your spiritual adultery from God.

It is obvious that you are unfamiliar with the situation you are speaking about and the bible. I never initially contacted either of the two "scientologist" administrators (one of whom (Wiki Administrator User:NicholasTurnbull is, thank Jehovah, a former scientologist. He was initially contacted by user:Retcon in regards to the behavior of Tommstein). Scientologist Administrator user:David Gerard became involved in the user:Tommstein/user:Central dispute by being the first admin to accept my Request for Arbitration (RFA) in regards to users Tommstein and Central's behavior. A RFA is a request to Wikipedia's community elected WP:ARBCOM for dispute resolution; it cannot be helped that one of the members is a Scientologist; though it hardly matters as the topic of discussion was not spiritually related. The apostle Paul appealed to his Roman citizenship for a fair hearing (Acts 22:25) and they were pagan.

Tommstein was indefinately banned by admin disgust on January 24 2006 by administrator N. Turnbull before my RFA even had enough admin votes to proceed. The RFA did eventually proceed. Tommstein's indefinate ban was unanimously upheld by EIGHT, community elected, Arbitration Committee Administrators. That same committee unanimously determined that user:Central be placed on "Personal Attack Parole" and "Probation" both for the period of one year. Central subsequently violated wiki policy several times and was given increasingly lengthy user blocks, until he was indefinately blocked by the scientologist Administrator D. Gerard (it must be noted that Central was to be indefinately blocked regardless of who did it as he had violated his "Personal Attack Parole" the allotted 5 times).

Just recently someone registered an account: user:DufferI, and attempted to impersonate me with a mix of my very real personal information mixed with assorted lies about my associations and a certain website I participate on. I only found out about the imposter because the individual had unwisely tried to register the account with MY e-mail address. Wikipedia automatically generated a "confirmation" e-mail and sent it to me. Under Wiki policy I am not allowed to just go around removing information off of people's user pages regardless if they are imposters or not. I submitted a personal request to D. Gerard (as I suspected the imposter was one of the recently banned though I have no proof) because he is very familiar with the situation regarding the recently banned. In the above section "Imposter", D. Gerard requests that I notify him of further imposters. I will gladly do so without regret.

I normally wouldn't waste my time on such accusations but in this instance I feel it's important that you KNOW that whoever said the things you state happened is lying to you (as documented above). Duffer 13:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I find it quite offensive that you misuse the apostle Paul's life trials as some kind of comparison of your own minor issues with posters on an internet website. You are not on trial before the United States government, and if you were you would get standard legal representation, and none of that would be appealing to active Satanists for their help in quelling your objectors. I will ignore your lengthy diversion on to other posters and your gripes with them, as that is no excuse, especially if you have used Satanists to shut-up your opponents online. How you can say that "the topic of discussion is not spiritually related" is beyond the pale, as the disputes you have are all religion related, and doctrinal disagreements with others, what is the Jehovah witness main page if it is not "spiritual"?! Regardless, if you are a Christian you would have nothing to do with Satanism what-so-ever, irrelevant of whether you deem it 'spiritual' talk or not. Do you appeals to online 'psychics' for their help? Or spiritualist mediums? Then why even talk with ones who are ever worse! I will not discuss this more, as it's your life, but please don't fool yourself by trying to justify such association with the total enemy of everything Jesus stood and died for. 2 Peter 3:14; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18

You brought up several serious accusation, I responded with a biblical precedent for my actions and a documentary of what really happened. Ignore it if you like, but know that had you actually read what I wrote you would see that the indefinately banned "objectors" "quelled" themselves without any help from me. One of the "quelled", Tommstein, quelled himself by being profoundly rude to a Wiki admin that happened to be a former scientologist, a quelling that was unanimously upheld by the wiki-community elected Arbitration Committee. I had nothing to do with his initial quelling, though the unanimous agreement to uphold the quelling was a product of my RFA. The other "quelled", "Central", likewise quelled himself by being extremely rude to a yound Wiki admin of unknown religious affiliation (among various other personal attack parolle violations). As a result of my RFA Central was given a lenient 5 chances to curb his pervasively rude behavior, he burned through the alloted 5 in a matter of days. The last person to block him was a scientologist administrator, though that means little as Central was on "Personal Attack Parole", when a person is on "PAP" it is no longer a matter of notifying an admin when the user has violated PAP as the admins are reading his every post already. When a PAP violation occurs it becomes a matter of which admin hits the "block user" button first.

As for the third "quelling" incident, someone registered a Wiki account impersonating me. Yes I did appeal to D. Gerard for his familiarity with the situation. Those are the only instances of "objector quelling". Their circumstances and issues were unanimously deemed significant enough to merit indefinate user blocks for all three. How can you claim this issue is spiritually related when the three "quelled" "objectors" were unanimously, indefinately, blocked for their pervasively un-Christian, and un-spiritual behavior. Is it so wrong that the impartial, community elected, Arbitration Committee upholds standards of decency and netiquette on an ENCYCLOPAEDIC website that gets 36,000,000 hits a DAY?!

Why are you so adamant about tying a non existant "association with Satanists" to me? Why do you choose to perpetuate rumors that I have above shown to be lies? If you feel that you absolutely must contact me again then please do so via e-mail (Matt_McGhee@comcast.net). Duffer 02:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

+++Turns out that user:David Gerard is not only NOT a scientologist but an outspoken critic with his own website. So there you have it, no scientologist was involved in the "quelling" of anyone. You should be more carefull when listening to rumors. Duffer 18:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You have been temporarily blocked for violation of the three-revert rule. Please feel free to return after the block expires, but also please make an effort to discuss your changes further in the future. Stifle 14:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{unblock}}

++Admins, I know this block was only ten hours, but please review the situation++ Duffer 01:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This is nonsense. The vandal user:82.88.103.38 has been warned several times. The past few days has seen a concerted effort by several anonymous vandals trying to disrupt Wikiproject:Jehovah's Witnesses articles (which I think is a direct result of the situation outlined directly above in the "JWs and Satanism" section. These vandals include the above IP address as well as: user:217.219.155.216; user:72.19.136.116; and user:205.188.116.199. They have even taken to harassing me by setting up the imposter account user:DufferI along with allegations that I associate with "satanists" in the above section User talk:Duffer1#JWs and Satanism by the above listed vandal user:72.19.136.116. Just look at their edit histories, they're new accounts that target Jehovah's Witness articles specifically, they're edit summaries are most often completely blank or mocking "RV-vandalism" tags. user:Stifle I strongly disagree with your block, reversion of vandalism is not blockable under WP:3RR. Duffer 16:57, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As someone on the butt end of this user's lies and libel, as he tries to blame everyone else but himself for his own bad behavior, I'll just quote the policy he just referenced, WP:3RR: "Simple vandalism is indisputable; don't confuse it with edits which you simply disagree with."82.88.103.38 17:28, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I not to blame the vandal? You were warned several times, given a courteous 'welcome' on your talk page that pointed you to wikipedia's proper editing. You were invited several times by me and another non-Jehovah's Witness editor to discuss your changes on the talk page. Then in a profound act of unreasonableness and malice you reported me for 3RR then came to my talk page and said "he tries to blame everyone else but himself for his own bad behavior". Who are you and where did you vandals come from? I recommend that any admin reviewing this should run check-users on the above listed IPs to see if any are related to the imposter user:DufferI (for questions regarding that one please refer to admin user:David Gerard) or the two recently indefinately banned users who harbor much malice against me user:Tommstein and/or user:Central. The 3RR policy: "The policy states that an editor must not perform more than three reversions, in whole or in part, on a single Wikipedia article within a 24 hour period. This rule does not apply to: -self-reverts - correction of simple vandalism". Duffer 17:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have made an appeal to both Stifle AND David Gerard. If this doesn't work, I'll press for more attentive and perceptive admins to get involved. - CobaltBlueTony 18:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Tony. Duffer 03:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What 82.88.103.38 said is 100% correct. The edits were not vandalism, they were edits you did not agree with. The 3RR is a hard rule to prevent people enforcing their own version of an article, and I stand over my block 100%.

As for the content dispute, I am not taking a part in it because my own personal views are too deep to be able to mediate it successfully. I would urge you to use WP:RFC to resolve the issue.

As a personal note to Duffer1: I completely respect your right to choose your religion, practice your religion, preach, go around to people's houses, not receive blood transfusions, etc., etc. However, this does come under WP:AUTO and I suggest you take a step back from articles related to your faith for a while, as your own point of view may be too coloured to see a neutral one. Stifle 22:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need for words about respecting my right to freely choose religion. I don't view this block as religious persecution, I just see it as a mistaken application of 3RR and now also a misapplication of WP:AUTO. That's like saying that because you're Irish you shouldn't write/contribute articles on the Irish railway systems. User:82.88.103.38 was warned several times. I placed a courteous welcome on his talk page. The information that he is trying to include has already been sifted through and added to the article by user:Lucille S. This is certainly not the first time that page had seen that specific "content". He reverted despite being told twice that the information was already in the article, and had been invited FOUR times to discuss his changes on the talk page. That is not a disagreement over content, that is reversion of vandalism. Duffer 03:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you need any support to contest this hasty block please let me know. It should only take a glance at the edit history to see that the only reason for the number of edits within the period of time was to prevent the article from being reverted to previous versions with no understandable cause. It would be different if there was even a small note on the discussion page (as we all requested) to talk about why the revisions were necessary and what information was yet to be included. Administrators in general may not realise that working on the pages relating to Jehovah's Witnesses is completely different to working on other pages. In order to defend NPOV and create articles of a high quality it beomes necessary to revert such POV and argumentative additions once introduced, otherwise the articles start to go backwards instead of forwards. Lucy 02:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was only a 10 hour block, thank you though. I hope at least that this has shed some light on the recent zoo of vandals plaguing the Witness articles, hopefully some admins will take notice. Duffer 04:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I know that the block was not for very long but it just seems a shame to have it on your record [[3]]. I guess we all need to be more careful with reverting the articles. If we continue to get no response on the talk page what is the next step? Mediation? Protection? I was really hoping to avoid these sorts of options. Guess we will have to wait and see... Lucy 06:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• ++Moved from Administrator user:Stifle's talk page per his request++*

I would strongly urge you to re-examine the pattern of anonymous users harassing Duffer, which led to your block of him. Perhaps a CheckUser might reveal these anonymous users to be connected to indefinitely banned users or other users who have contended with Duffer in the past. Even if no sockpuppetry is revealed, please look more closely at the pattern and timing of edits, as well as the attitude and language used by these anonymous attackers. I fear you have been used by these vehement and unrelenting individuals who hide their identities to continue their personal attacks as part of a vendetta against Duffer for his involvement in the indefinite ban of both Tommstein (who was banned before his RfA was completed) and Central for what David Gerard called "trolling, personally abusive, unable to work with others, gross net negative," strikingly similar tactics used by the former. These other anonymous users are using religious ideas to provoke and antagonize. How can you let them continue on? Again, please examine carefully what is going on here. Thank you. - CobaltBlueTony 17:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I had blocked him for a violation of the three-revert rule. The 3RR is a hard and fast rule on how many times an article may be reverted, i.e. changed back to a prior form, in a 24-hour period. I have not, and do not, take any sides in the dispute, and in any case I must recuse myself from the content dispute due to my personal beliefs.

Again, I don't support edit warring. The pattern of anonymous users harassing Duffer1 is irrelevant — if you break the 3RR, you break the 3RR. Stifle 22:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Stifle, after a long time coming, you have correctly blocked the user Duffer1. This is not the first time he has broken the three revert rule by any means. Frankly, I am very surprised he is not permanently blocked, as I have found this link to a mass of rule breaking edits and personal attacks by him and his religious apologist CobaltBlueTony.

After you correctly banned him he went on a slander exercise making the malicious and totally unfounded personal attacks withzero Civility and many insults breaking all the standard foundation Wikipedia rules attacking new posters, with his unfounded unsubstantiated accusations, that breaches the 'assume good faith' rule, the 'personal attacks' rule, Wiki etiquette and many others. He said:

"The past few days has seen a concerted effort by several anonymous vandals. . .These vandals' include the above IP address as well as: user:217.219.155.216; user:72.19.136.116; and user:205.188.116.199 They have even taken to harassing me by setting up the imposter account user:DufferI"

Is this acceptable practice to allow banned users to then vent their anger, abuse, personal attacks, slander, zero Civility, attacking new posters, and completely unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations? It's band enough people doing this when not banned, but surely this kind of behavior shows a flagrant disregard to the authority of the administrator and all the rules of Wikipedia. Maybe this guy, Duffer1 thinks a ban means 'anything goes' when under that ban, but surely it's totally unjust to allows such grossly abusive and malicious behavior to be spouted by him, on top of the massive lists of abuse and rule breaking he's already got away with. I hope you will review his posts and increase the ban to at least one month, or an indefinite ban due to his arrogant and highly abusive manner. Everyone knows that he, Duffer1, is the first to run complain to the administrators when he feels his pride has been wounded, and calls for anyone who disagrees with his religious views to be banned, or slanderers at the very least. Surely he should play by the set rules or face the same consequences as others have to? Many can see from his posts he thinks he's 'untouchable', and will get extra special soft treatment because he's a "Jehovah's Witness". I hope you will not allows that to happen, and will increase his ban as this would certainly happen to anyone else posting the same stuff and flagrantly breaking all the rules, and also doing it while banned. Regards, Ríoghán P.201.248.246.196 11:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have e-mailed user:Stifle. The list the above person mentions was compiled by the now indefinately banned user:Tommstein and has already been reviewed by the Arbitration Committee. After the Arbitration, Administrator user:Pathoschild blanked the page, unfortunately he didn't delete the history. I have no hard feelings towards you about the block even though I still very much disagree with it. These unscrupulous vandals have used you, I recommend reading the comments left by them on my talk page to get a feel for just how nasty these people are. The situation is out of hand. Duffer 14:02, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That arbitration page you linked to lists 4 instances of edit warring and 18 instances of personal attacks and incivility by you (at which point they probably got tired of adding more), versus 7 by this Tommstein person. The Workshop page linked to from there adds another count of edit warring and 2 counts of point of view editing by you, which brings your grand total to 25, even though you were apparently the one that started the whole case trying to get others banned. It is amazing that they banned Tommstein and ignored your far more egregious behavior (complainer's benefit? Committee incompetence? Both?). This is probably why the above poster remarked about you acting like you're special, untouchable, above the rules, and all your bad behavior is everyone else's fault but yours. Despite warnings that you were given while blocked, you still persist in calling edits you disagree with "vandalism" and those that make them "vandals." I also see from that Workshop page that you were told, in response to your begging them to erase that impressive list of your policy and behavioral violations, that "a lot of it's true, and it doesn't really look like a personal attack or anything to me" and to "be more careful in your use of the word 'libel'." This from a committee that, from all appearances, you have embarrassing naked pictures in compromising situations of.217.218.235.162 21:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What an amazing display of personal attacks! Perhaps you should register so that you can make it easier for administrators to ban you. Just keep writing like you have above, and I guarantee you'll irritate them. Edit fairly and with civility, and you'll prove me a liar. (Also, you shouldn't end sentences with prepositions.) - CobaltBlueTony 22:03, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take your dispute off my talk page. WP:RFC and WP:RFM are good choices. Stifle 14:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, I am having no part in this dispute as I am too prejudiced in the issue to be impartial. Stifle 14:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Stifle above that mediation or request for comment might be more appropriate here, as there is no obvious case of vandalism. See dispute resolution for details. Despide CD's comment, if you can show vandalism (as defined by policy) or 3RR violations (reported to WP:AN3), they will get enforced. The problem with content disputes is that it's never easy to see who is 'right', hence the suggestion to follow DR. Petros471 14:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I understand you not wanting to get involved with a content dispute, the problem is Cast isn't disputing anything. In fact he hasn't directly addressed anything I've put forth. Despite my comprehensive outline of the dispute he persistently removes the {{Totally disputed}} tag from the article without basis; I'd link the page history of the article Jehovah in the New Testament but someone recently renamed it. His behavior is not a content dispute, it is unrelenting bad faith edit waring without direct violation of 3RR. Duffer 19:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well the totally disputed tag is there at the moment. I'll try and have a go at looking at the content issue later (no promises though). The page was renamed/moved incorrectly (meaning the history is split over the two articles) so I've tagged it for an admin to fix. Petros471 20:14, 1 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Way to go! I just wished I had more time to add more myself. Thumbs up!

---

RE: Revert of controversies page: Reversion without discussion as usual... Welcome to Wikipedia. You reverted my mods to the "Controversies..." page without any explanation. My mods were not "NPOV" imho - how on earth is anything truly "non-point of view"?? That's impossible. Every human writing represents the point of view of someone, and so does this controversies article. My edits were more concise by far, and gave a better overview of the issues here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.176.149.50 (talk • contribs) 11:53, July 27, 2006

---

Um, Matt? Those edits by 24.224.182.82 (talk · contribs) we actually good, and were a fine foundation for good intro summary paragraphs. The place for sourcing is in the expository body of the article. Previously, editors were warned not to mention topics in the intro that were not covered with sourced material in the body. Perhaps we could use those edits as a start? - CobaltBlueTony 17:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, do you think I did a good job, or did I acquiesce (sp.?) too much? - CobaltBlueTony 01:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Might need some help with this Ben doesn't like my addition.George 12:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Duffer!

Thanks for archiving the Talk page on the main JW page. Nice to see you back! BTW, how does one archive talk pages? Dtbrown 02:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Matthew:

With all due respect, bibelforscher is translated into the English language as "Bible Researcher". It is erroneous to translate the term to "Jehovah's Witnesses" or to even denote that this is what it alludes to. I understand that you believe your faith is the only true faith and I do not stand to argue that; however, what I am contesting is that the purple triangle was as a badge, solely meant to denote Jehovah's Witnesses, when there were other bible researchers that were in the Nazi prison camps also.

To uphold what you're stating would be incorrect and would make the witnesses look like martyrs, when there were many other religious groups that were bible researchers and were also martyred during that time also.

Your opinion and changes to correct information is based upon your own biased opinion, which is very common with your group.

Sincerely,

Girraud —Preceding unsigned comment added by Girraud (talk • contribs) 01:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pure nonsense. I provided reputable sources that wholeheartedly contradict your assertion had you bothered to read the talk page. Duffer 01:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer, "Pure nonsense"?

Regarding “Bible Students” under Nazi Germany, the Watchtower’s own resident archivist (Johannes Wrobel) agrees the term was applied to religious affiliates aside from Jehovah’s Witnesses and/or splinter groups from Jehovah’s Witnesses. You should also be aware the Watchtower Society has nearly cornered the market on presenting a historical perspective of Jehovah’s Witnesses under Nazi Germany, which makes objective analysis that much harder. Furthermore, Watchtower authors such as Johannes Wrobel are quick to label non-Jehovah’s Witness (NOT “anti-Jehovah’s Witness”) eyewitnesses of the events as offering a one-sided presentation, yet fail to point out his (their) own conflict of interest. Before you label someone else’s assertions as “pure nonsense” I recommend expanding your own academic world. --Marvin Shilmer 21:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Purple triangle for reply.Duffer 03:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer, to the extent of my observations here, I am compelled to compliment your more moderate approach to subjects related to Jehovah’s Witnesses. I understand you are now a baptized member of the religious community of JWs, and I respect your choice. I too made the same choice decades ago, and I remain in association with JWs.

In the online community it is fairly rare (in my opinion) to find a moderate among JWs. Unavoidably we all have unique personal baggage and limitations, and if unchecked these tend to inappropriately influence our analysis of subjects touching our personal experiences.

Among the online community, in my experience it is more probable to find JWs either far left or far right, rather than moderate in their approach. My opinion is this stems from inadequate education and/or analytical skills. I do not mean lack of education in general. There are highly educated individuals to be found among JWs. The lack of education I see has to do with specific fields of knowledge, which fields of knowledge even highly educated individuals may lack skills in. Among highly educated JWs I also find a willingness to refrain from leveraging their formal training/education and resulting professional analysis in support of controversial aspects of Watchtower Society policy. This abstention is telling, in many ways.

In the main you seem to be one of the exceptions, though from my vantage point in some subject areas you have yet to thoroughly engage specific subjects in the face of counter-argumentation. When you do choose to engage difficult aspects of Watchtower Society doctrine I hope I’m still around to observe your choices and method. Growth is always a fascinating thing to observe. -- Marvin Shilmer 13:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to hear if you have any opinions on the topic I started here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Faithful_and_Discreet_Slave#The_role_of_the_class_as_a_whole Summer Song 19:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you figure out this riddle? It was in the newspaper apparently and a few people around here (work) are trying to figure it out. I was curious about it and am stumped. They all think it's Satan but I disagree. Where it says "human" in parenthesis, the printing on the paper got messed up. I can see that the word starts with an H but am not sure what it says...maybe human...maybe half...maybe neither. Obviously being from a newspaper, there could be some things that Christendom believes as being true that we don't so maybe that's what's throwing me off. Can you figure it out?

Adam, God made out of dust
But thought it best to make me first
So I was made before man
To answer God's most holy plan
A (human?) being I became
And Adam gave me a name
I from his presence then withdrew
And more of Adam never knew
I did my maker's law obey
Nor ever went from it astray
Thousands of miles I go in fear
But seldom on Earth appear
For the purpose wise which God did see
He put a living soul in me
A soul from me God did claim
And took from me the soul again
So when from me the soul had fled
I was the same as when first made
And without hands or feet or soul
I travel from pole to pole
I labor hard day and night
To fallen man I give great light
Thousands of people young and old
Will by my death great light behold
No right or wrong can I conceive
The Scripture I cannot believe
Although my name is therein found
They are to me an empty sound
No fear of death doth trouble me
Real happiness, I'll never see
To heaven I'll never go
Or to hell below
So when these lines you slowly read
Search your Bible with all speed
For tat my name is written there
I honestly to you declare
WHO AM I?
The answer is one word, and it appears only four times in the Bible.

JMlover 18:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Answer: Whale - after conferring with quite a few people, we've come up with what we believe is the answer. Whale's were once hunted for oil and the oil was primarily used for lamps to give light. JMlover 18:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Sorry bud, I have no idea. Duffer 20:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Yeah, no one seems to know the answer. Most common guess is "serpent" but it's in the Bible 15 times. My friend, Mike, is going to dig deeper though...check out the King James Version and all. But yeah... *does the happy dance* My congregation appointed 2 new MS's and 4 new elders at meeting last night. =] JMlover 00:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hola Matt. I'm new to being a Wiki member and all. I joined the JW project and was looking through editing history as part of the "To Do" task. I came acrossed something and am slightly confused on what should be done. I don't know how long Inspire987 has been around but he/she went onto the Jehovah's Witnesses page and added a citation. The bot deleted the citation. Then Inspire987 came back and reverted the bot's deletion stating, "Citation is VERY IMPORTANT and should not be deleted!!!!!!!" Looks like the bot deleted the citation again. Here's the citation link that Inspire987 is trying to add: link. It's located in the "Controversy" section. I'm not sure if that citation is needed or not, so my question is, should we be fighting the bot and keeping the citation? Or should we side with the bot and leave the citation out? I saw that your name has been over that history a bit so I figured you'd be a good person to ask...although anyone can answer my question, I'm sure. JMlover 00:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the bot is right in removing the link as it has zero educational value. It's essentially blogspam. Some of the more "weird" Witness beliefs are already listed in the Controversy Wiki, and if someone wanted to find out WHY any given critic considers those beliefs "weird" there are already a number of sites, references, and sources that will, at the very least, provide specifics. Duffer 00:36, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for the clarification. =] JMlover 17:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Duffer1 :-) You can delete the reference if you wish, it's your perogative, I don't have an change alert on the page as you do! There's absolutely no doubt about the positive contributions the WT movement has had and continues to have for Humanity, such as civil rights for all minority religions to practice their beliefs for starters. Correspondingly, people collectively within Society are influencing clarification of WTB&TS policy to medical treatments such as which type of blood fractions are permissible, rather than the previous none at all (it used to be 'personal descision' 50 years ago). Or the legal policies for keeping confidential records within a large organisation. Also has been imparting into Society a collective rationality ready for the next coming 50 years of organisations, of which I hope you will personally see through with a life of achievement and personal growth throughought your life-cycle. Not forgetting the demographics, as people leave large organisations of this type and return to mainstream Society taking the best. High up in the WTB&TS day-to-day operations (at Branch level and higher) there is a thing currently described as 'the world-wide-order', it's the official operational core of the WT movement, but in no way does it fully control the movement. It took a Sputnik propaganda stunt to start the space race & cold war, the space race to miniaturise electronics and bringing us together. You;ll later realise that it's really a collective spirit of humanity is what really runs things, not imagined polar forces from a totalist ideology that are portayed as out of control. Add-ponder 14:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The edit has nothing to do with any of that. It says: "Followers of the Watchtower Movement, Jehovah's Witnesses (previously known as International Bible Students until 1931) have been using the name throughout the world (with exceptions) as the most commonly spoken English pronunciation. of the Tetragrammaton." The edit flat out makes no sense grammatically. Even though Jehovah's Witnesses are the "WT movement" and not really followers of, the sentence goes on to say: "have been using the name throughout the world". Well what name? WT Movement? Witnesses? IBS? Besides all that, no Witness, no encyclopedic entry, no legal organization is called, or calls itself: "The Watchtower Movement." There's just no such thing regardless of how many google pages use any given combination of "watchtower" and "movement". I'm surprised that someone has actually taken the time to even write a small wiki article on it (even though all of that info is already available in the JW or related wiki articles). Duffer 19:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can now see the point that you are making :-) I also see now we're debating 2 issues together here at the same time and they are getting tangled up. I suggest they be looked at separately. First point seems to be an issue over what's supposed to be a generic term: [followers of the Watchtower]. The rogue word in the 'Jehovah' page seems to be: 'movement', perhaps 'movement' shouldn’t be there. However, adherents of the Watchtower Society whatever the name used over the last 130 years (i.e. Colportuers, Bible Students, IBSA, Jehovah witnesses) have all upheld 'God's name: Jehovah'. For a person that works for the government in America, you wouldn't describe this person as working for George W Bush would you? You would correctly state the person works for the American government. Rather than call someone a 'Tanzanian' or a 'Ugandan', call the person an 'African'. There might be a policy in Wiki that might apply here, (something like avoiding ‘recentism’?).

The Second point is one of definition: it's evident that the direction of the Watchtower Movement (new wiki page) is not under the exclusive control of the JW faith, just as the progress of global americanisation is not 'Americans'. There had been some scholarly research published on the Watctower Movement in a broad sociological aspect, but these works are few and have been difficult to re-locate, they're all probably a bit old now, I hope someone can cite them, or better still update the research. Besides making up 0.1% of total global population, how can JW's alone possibly control the direction of and contribution that this influential, yet influenced movement makes to Humanity? This is proven by the fact that the other 99.9% of humanity OUTSIDE of the faith has via basic human nature, and WITHIN the movement, continued to influence the activities and policies of the Watchtower-based faith over the last century. i.e., the continual evolution and honing of human evangelical effectiveness as humanity progresses (of which the JW's are now among the forefront of this development) and the allowing of specified blood fractions instead of an outright blanket no-blood policy, the influences in advertising such as totalist idealism to increase psychological impact, just to name a few. The continual turnover of people coming and going in the JW faith allows the free intermixing of ideas and skills between the inside and outside. Just as it's impossible to describe Americanisation by defining Amercians, it is just as impossible to cover a global Watchtower-influenced world movement soley by the beliefs and practices of JW's. Also, the practical experience of 'Hollywood' throughout the world is not soley defined by the people and practices of the town Hollywood, nor could The Humanities ever be covered just by describing the human body.

Finally, the addition of: 'followers of the watchtower' is intended to state that the usage of 'Gods name=Jehovah' has been carried out PRIOR to 1931 by dedicated followers, lead by 'Pastor' C.T. Russell, the founder of the Watchtower Society (he sacrificed today's equivalent of around $1,000,000 of his own money for his beliefs by selling up his clothes store chain businesses, reinvesting the capital to buy printing works). Back in 1890’s he was among a small group of fledgling Protestant faiths fervently advocating the usage of Jehovah as God's name (with some doing it deliberately, just for effect to annoy Catholics!). I think it's a mark of respect and recognition for those faithful followers of the Watchtower who had upheld their beliefs including: God's name=Jehovah.

Add-ponder 03:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You wrote on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jehovah's Witnesses and civil liberties, " if this article can achieve NPOV ".

I have rewritten the intro in an attempt to address the POV issues. Can you re-read the intro and tell me if you think I have gotten it right? Are there any POV issues in the body of the article? --Richard 07:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like it. I made a few small changes. Good work. Duffer 11:17, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer,

Just to be clear, I have no desire to establish ultimate truth or to mis-state the Jehovah's Witness POV. My only goal here is to ensure that the Christian POV is accurately stated in the "criticism" section. The Jehovah's Witness answer to a criticism is worthless if that position itself isn't correctly stated, and the same would be true for a Christian "answer" to a mis-stated Jehovah's Witness position.

I think if we work together on this we should have both sides fairly (and briefly) stated here. I only have experience in Christian and Jewish theology, and have never been a Jehovah's Witness, so I'll depend on you to keep the Jehovah's Witness POV correctly stated, and I hope that you'll do the same with me for the Christian position. We are both required to maintain a neutral POV in articles, and this particular article is not neutral.

I'll research each of your points, and if there is a large division in Christian thinking on that point (so that it may not be a subject of actual differences between Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses, I'll delete the point). For instace -- the "Trinity" statement was my attempt to avoid eccessively deleting earlier wording, but your adjustment made it clear that it was no longer correct to retain that artifact. The anarthrous theos in the genitive case may be another point, and I'll research the positions that Christians have. If they are divided, I'll remove it.

Also, if the section becomes unweildy we can move the bulk to the controversy page and move their information to this page. I'm trying to avoid that, since "monstrous" is better applied as a quoted opinion on that page than on this one.

Best, Tim 17:29, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duffer1, you have added the critics' claims but you have erased the official answer of the WTBS on the John 1:1:

Jehovah's Witnesses, in turn, claim that their rendering is grammatically sound, theologically consistent with the New Testament context, and that the traditional views about the divinity of Christ are more philosophical rather than Biblical.

And the footnote said:

Jehovah's Witnesses do not share the traditional, philosophical views about the nature of God, which are based on the platonic via negativa. On the contrary, they stress the fact that Bible calls other beings beyond Jehovah as gods, Jehovah being called as the "God of gods".—Deuteronony 10:17.

In order the presentation to be balanced, it needs both views. Please put them back.

Sadly, many people are still fighting about John 1:1 without knowing neither Greek nor patristics, and their only "weapons" are lists of references that seem to support their views, even though I doubt if they really understand what they read in such references. After reading many websites on the subject, I have concluded that the common religious American is very far from the substance of the topic. I will try to give an introduction to the subject using the comments of NET Bilble:

Wallace's NET Bible, John 1:1 ft.3 - “From a technical standpoint, though, it is preferable to see a qualitative aspect to anarthrous θεός in John 1:1c (ExSyn 266-69). Translations like the NEB, REB, and Moffatt are helpful in capturing the sense in John 1:1c, that the Word was fully deity in essence (just as much God as God the Father). However, in contemporary English “the Word was divine” (Moffatt) does not quite catch the meaning since “divine” as a descriptive term is not used in contemporary English exclusively of God”.

This comment actually gives us the clues of the dispute. "A god" or "divine" is grammatically an acceptable translation. But it causes a problem to the traditional views of Christ's divinity: It does not make Christ "fully deity in essence", namely, that Christ has the nature of aktiston (uncreated), his nature being entirely different from creation, according to the principles of via negativa. Via negativa claims that God has entirely different nature from creation. Bible speaks about the superiority of God over creation but does not use the ideas of via negativa, which is platonic in origin. Via negativa used introduced by Philo of Alexandria to the biblical theology. The Jewish Encyclopedia says about Philo's views:

His Doctrine of God:

Philo obtains his theology in two ways: by means of negation and by positive assertions as to the nature of God (comp. Zeller, "Philsophie der Griechen," 3d ed., iii., § 2, pp. 353-360; Drummond, "Philo Judæus," ii. 1-64, London, 1888). In his negative statement he tries to define the nature of God in contrast to the world. Here he can take from the Old Testament only certain views of later Jewish theology regarding God's sublimity transcending the world (Isa. lv. 9), and man's inability to behold God (Ex. xxxii. 20 et seq.). But according to the conception that predominates in the Bible God is incessantly active in the world, is filled with zeal, is moved by repentance, and comes to aid His people; He is, therefore, entirely different from the God described by Philo. Philodoes not consider God similar to heaven or the world or man; He exists neither in time nor space; He has no human attributes or emotions. Indeed, He has no attributes whatever (ἁπλοῡς), and in consequence no name (ἅρρητος), and for that reason he can not be perceived by man (ἀκατάληπτος). He can not change (ἅτρεπτος): He is always the same (ἀἱδιος). He needs no other being (χρήζων ὁυδενòς τò παράπαν), and is self-sufficient (ἑαυτῷ ἱκανός). He can never perish (ἅφθαρτος). He is the simply existent (ó ὤν, τὺ ὅν), and as such has no relations with any other being (τὸ γὰρ ἢ ὄν ἒστιν ουχὶ τῶν πρός τι).

Views on Anthropomorphisms.

It is evident that this is not the God of the Old Testament, but the idea of Plato designated as Θεός, in contrast to matter.

Via negativa was introduced in Christian theology by the Alexandrian Christian philosophers, as Clement of Alexandria and others. Via negativa was stressing, with philosophical arguments, the sharp distinction between the uncreated God and the creation. It was actually, at that period, a Greek weapon to fight polytheism. Jesus, or the Word, was not considered in the terms of via negativa (See International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [rev. edition], article "God the Father".) until the 3rd century. Even Origen, a famous Christian Platonist, considered Jesus a "creature". Officially Jesus was discussed in the terms of via negativa only with the First Ecumenical Council. Then it was stated that the Son of God is "full God" (όλος Θεός) as his Father is "full God". This is what actually the NET Bible says.The whole matter is philosophical rather than Biblical. NET Bible also denies the word "divine" because it is not exclusively used for God. But in the Bible the corresponding terms, as theos, theios, elohim etc., are also not exclusively used for Jehovah, and this happens because via negativa is not a Biblical conception. Bible does not speak much about God's nature, but it speaks a lot about God's action. This is the great difference between Biblical and Hellenistic theology.

--Vassilis78 15:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Duffer,

The fact that Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept Via Negativa is described in non-technical language in the article "We Worship What We Know", w84 9/1 25-30.

Some samples:

• "Jehovah’s Witnesses worship neither the “incomprehensible” God of the Trinitarians nor the “unknown God” of Arius."
• "They share the view of the Christian layman who is recorded as having bluntly told the wrangling theologians assembled in Nicaea in 325 C.E.: ‘Christ did not teach us dialectics, art, or vain subtleties, but simple-mindedness, which is preserved by faith and good works.’ Apparently this man had suffered for his faith in Christ, even as many of Jehovah’s Witnesses have. Like him, they have no faith in theological philosophy. They accept with simplicity what the Bible states about God, Christ and the holy spirit, and they are willing to suffer for their simple faith and prove it by good works."
• "Jehovah’s Witnesses do not deny Jesus’ godship, or divinity. But they do not share the Trinitarians’ philosophical understanding of these terms. When Trinitarians speak of the “divinity of Jesus,” they do not mean that he is “a god” or “godlike,” but that he is “God,” one of the three co-eternal persons of the “Godhead.”"
• "The Trinitarian idea that “the redemption of man from sin and death is only then guaranteed if Christ is total God and total man” is unscriptural philosophy."

There is another helpful article: w84 8/1 pp. 20-24: How Christendom Came to Worship an Unknown God.

A sample:

• Interestingly, the French Pirot and Clamer Bible comments that the Greek philosophers “had not come to a knowledge of God the Creator. Even Plato saw in God merely the organizer of preexistent matter.” Plato’s God was a nameless supreme “idea” that his later disciples called “the One,” or “the Good.” It was such a mysterious, unknowable God tied in with Plato’s divine triad theory that apostate Christian church fathers set out to imitate. In a sense, therefore, Christendom has an “unknown God.”

You cam make further research in your Watchtower Library making search with the phrase “via negativa”.

As regards specific information on John 1:1, you can see the appendixes of the NW and of the Interlinear, beyond the several articles on the subject in The Watchtower. Hence, I think that both my statements do represent the official Watchtower position on the subject.

Now as for the whole NWT article, I have expressed my opinion in the discussion page. It could be done much better, much more informative. Its current form mirrors a battle field. Religious topics generally are very poor and very poorly organized in the English Wikipedia as result of many fanatics who want just to promote their positions, fanatics who have less than the basic knowledge to deal with such things. Of course, Wikipedia is open to everybody, but this works only if someone recognizes his own limitations. Many of the major linguistic and theological works have been written or translated in English, but sadly I see in religious articles a very poor bibliography. Most people in the English Wikipedia work only with what they find in the Internet, and it would be very good if they had really taken advantage of what really exists in the Internet. Usually, people are merely incited to write things because of the things their pastor said or the preacher of their Sunday school lessons. I am sorry that I use such a bitter language, but these are my feelings when I see the edit-wars that take place in the articles.

--Vassilis78 15:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]